


Mouth in the Door

by dominoro (rironomind)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Extended Metaphors, Memory Loss, Monsters, Multi, Not Beta Read, Original Character(s), Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Apocalypse, Rebirth, Science Fiction, Swearing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-02-25 06:20:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 15,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22091434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rironomind/pseuds/dominoro
Summary: Adeas Catchall has died, which is nothing new. He woke up. Again, not new. But the absence of a year of his life is.More and more pairs are spliting up, the broken world has tipped just a little more off-balance, the Factions are after him and everything is threatening to fall apart. How? Why? The only person who knows what's going on is Ryet, a mysterious man who calls him Master and who has apparently been travelling with him for a whole year.(The easiest answer is always yes.)
Comments: 19
Kudos: 7





	1. Epilogue

**Author's Note:**

> This is a quick and dirty, end-of-the-world thing. It's very, very rough and filled with inconsistencies but I just wanted to write it and not think too hard about it. I'm not entirely sure where the story will go but I will try and finish it as soon as I can without backtracking too much. Go ahead and flag up any dangling sentences or grammar mistakes and I'll fix it as I go along.

First, there was nothing.

Then there was gratefulness. A bright flash of it. Or, no, it was irritation. Or, not even that, it was _discomfort_. Discomfort at all the blasted tiny grains of dirt trying to push its way inside him, for him to become part of the dirt, or whatever this was. It certainly smelled loamy but he was trying not to breathe that hard since he wanted to keep those tiny grains out of him. 

He made a sound, so there was now sound. It was something between a grunt and a moan and he shifted so there was movement too with arms and legs attached.

 _A wonderful feeling, that. Being able to move._ So, there was sarcasm too, and higher intelligence and inner thoughts.

He decided he had been lying down for long enough, so, there was time or at least a sense of time passing. He struggled, elbow bending, hand twisting to push a palm down onto soft dirt so he could push himself up on one hand, and then another. It was more difficult than he expected because, surprise, surprise, there was weight, and he had a lot of it. The ground was also reluctant to let him go, so that was gravity right there.

He got up anyway because that was stubbornness and he found that he had a decent amount, so that was pride too. He shook his head and immediately felt ill, so that was nausea or vertigo. 

Once he was at least fairly certain (so that was approximation or guessing) that no grains of dirt would enter his body, he opened his eyes. So he could see. 

The world was very disappointing, so there was that too, but he was on an incline which explained why he was starting to slip because his body wanted to be perpendicular to the ground but the ground wasn’t at the right angle-

So there was also headaches. Good.

Before he could fully examine the wonders of headaches, he had forgotten the importance of muscles which led to his body tilting very slowly until he stumbled and fell, screaming down the side of a hill.

At least he didn’t have to rediscover all those feelings and sensations again, he was already well acquainted with them. Falling was a new one, though. And then landing.

“Oof!” He groaned and got up once more, this time not on an incline. When he opened his eyes, there was something new standing in front of him, or rather, someone new.

He was well-dressed, that is, his clothes fit well although he looked uncomfortable in them, or maybe it was because he was covered head to toe in dirt. He had a sharp pair of dark eyes, intelligent, an automatic downward curl to his lip and an odd pair of ears. They stuck out, was what was odd about them, like two handles that could be used to grab his head with if one was in the habit of grabbing heads. His face was a smorgasbord of emotions, rapidly switching from amazed, to relief, to awe, to outrage, to, to-

“Master Adeas!” He cried in disbelief. “You’re back!”

“Er, hello! Do I know you?” So he knew words. That was, well it wasn’t new, but it was like he had come home after being away and despite all the furniture being exactly where they should be, they displayed themselves anew to him.

The supposed ‘new’ piece of furniture had fallen to its knees like some sort of living table and was gaping up at him in breathless awe, like Adeas was the answer to all his prayers. “Master Adeas,” he repeated softly. “You don’t...you don’t remember me?”

“No idea at all,” Adeas said, apologetically. “Who are you?”

The man got up unsteadily, and then, frighteningly, got back down on one knee. 

“Wait, wait, are you going to propose or something? I’m not into that, I swear. I didn’t take a vow or anything, I just don’t really do commitment? It’s a values thing, don’t be offended.”

One side of those downturned lips quirked up and Adeas was alarmed to see that the man looked torn between laughing and crying. “My name is Ryet.” He had one hand on his chest. “We have been travelling together for the past year.” He frowned, “You don’t remember me at all?”

“The last thing I remember is,” Adeas sucked in a breath of ash and started coughing, his eyes stung with tears. “Green, lots of green, orange, and then the smell of paper. It was in some place that started with a P. There might have been a mountain.” He looked down at Ryet who had now gotten to his feet but was still dwarfed by Adeas. “Do you know anything about that?”

Ryet looked disgusted. “Were you high?”

“Wow, okay, first of all, it’s rude to dismiss the last thing I remember as a drug trip. Second, whatever it was, do you think I could get some of that again?” As Adeas looked down, he saw his own mottled form, scarred and still so strewn with veins despite his rebirth it looked like he was heavily into S&M.“No, Ryet, actually, uh, do you know where I can get clothes? And food? And a shower? Not necessarily in that order. Er,” he winced, feeling dirt in places where it shouldn’t be. “I also just realised I’m uh naked and filthy so maybe if you could do me a solid and just help me get all that stuff. Not that you _have_ to, I just thought it’d be kind of weird for me to go traipsing into the nearest town like this.”

Adeas waited, half-wincing, for Ryet to realise that he was speaking to a monster and make a run for it but Ryet only rolled his eyes. So that was assumptions squared away. “Come with me, Master Adeas,” he sighed, turning to leave.

Adeas followed him, shambling and stumbling along behind him. His legs were almost twice as long as Ryet’s but he was still relearning how to walk, nevermind run, so he kept pace. He almost faceplanted in the soft ground twice, but swung out an arm, looping around a dead tree instead. Its brittle bark cracked and he fell forward again, stopping only when Ryet held out an arm to catch him. “Are you alright, Master Adeas?” Ryet asked. 

I was just born again, Adeas wanted to say. What do you think? But he choked before he could get any words out of his mouth. “Mrgh,” he managed.

“You’re fine,” Ryet said, which wasn’t helpful at all, and righted him with a surprisingly strong arm. “The town’s not far.”

Soft dirt gave way to cracked asphalt and gravel, interesting to walk on and while the texture and hardness left much to be desired, the journey was definitely smoother. Ryet kept turning back to check on him, as if afraid he would wander off or get lost in the dark. Not that it was particularly dark. The sky was the same muted grey it had been since he woke up. 

Adeas saw the lights burning holes in the distance, but there was something odd about it. It looked like a giant had taken a massive razor to the place. Every building taller than two storeys had been shorn, leaving short stumps of concrete buildings poking out from the ground.

“This is Redwell,” he said, shocked. “It was actually standing last I remember, not picking itself out of the ground. What happened here?”

Ryet looked at him with an unreadable expression. “It was only recently reclaimed from the New Whys. Come on, everyone’s waiting for us at Kyla’s.” Adeas recognised the name the way one saw a post-it note stuck on the desk and regarded it with vague recognition. He felt the same nagging feeling that accompanied the time it took to process the shorthand of the scribbled note and the backtracking of days to locate exactly when and why the note was written. All that before the actual essential information was retrieved.

Ryet had pulled open a door and strongarmed Adeas down a set of dinghy steps, ignoring his muffled protests of “Are you sure we can just walk in? I’m naked for crying out loud!” 

There were various people standing around the bar, fingers laced together and eyes downcast. They looked up when Adeas and Ryet appeared, there was a significant amount of silence.

“I really think this is totally unnecessary-”

“Shut up and get inside, Master Adeas,” Ryet said, shoving him inside. His voice was quickly drowned out by a cacophony of voices and tearful shouts. The wave of relief and surprise that swept across the room almost bowled Adeas over. 

“Ade, you’re back!”

“Always knew you’d come crawling back you bastard!”

“You did it then? The bitch is dead?”

“Kyla’s pisssed, she was about ready to drag you back herself.”

Adeas scanned the crowd of strangers, studying their features until he knew them to be friends. Eyes that crinkled like wrapping paper, lips as thin as leaves, Heron, Little Moll, he had a whole directory of names and faces and had just regained access to it. The burst of new information was overwhelming but it was better than nothing. Ryet started to say something but Adeas was being swept away. 

Adeas smiled back at him, “I’m just learning all sorts of new things today, aren’t I, Ryet?”

Ryet smiled back. “Yeah, Ade, yeah,” he said, almost too quietly for Adeas to hear.


	2. Hello again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ask your questions

Adeas struggled with the tie, his fingers still unwilling to bend or grip the way they used to. He gave up and tossed the piece of fabric aside. It hit the cheap plastic sofa and slid off like a sad snake. _Sorry tie_ , _looks like it’s casual sexy today._ He undid the top two buttons of his shirt, exposing more of the large crisscrosses of raised scars that covered his face. They disappeared beneath his shirt but they weren't gone. 

“What are you doing?” Ryet asked flatly from the door. 

“Ryet!” Adeas said, dropping his hands as if they’d been caught down his pants.

Ryet had changed out of his dirt-stained shirt into an identical lilac button-down but his trousers were still covered in dirt and ash. He rolled up his sleeves as he entered and his arms were littered with so many scars it looked like he had a used a hot grill to stamp them into his skin. Ryet jerked his chin at the tie that had slithered onto the floor. “You’re not wearing the tie?” 

“No, I er, I can’t.” Adeas gave a weak laugh and held up his stiff fingers. “Just been reborn and all, not everything works at once.”

Ryet came over, put on the tie and then removed it and looped it loosely around Adeas’ neck. “You knot it weird anyway. Button up your shirt and turn down your collar. You’re going back out there.”

Adeas winced. He had let the others talk over his reappearance with friendly punches and tears of joy. He wondered just what he had been doing to elicit such relief. From what he’d gathered, he’d apparently gone on some kind of suicide mission which ended both expectedly and unexpectedly. He tried to ask more but no one really knew what happened except that it was dangerous, took a lot of preparation and involved _Ryet._

The way they said his name with such a mix of hurt and anger made Adeas skittish. Ryet himself didn’t look particularly bothered, but he disappeared into the back and reemerged with trays laden with food. Hot stew, bread, noodles, it was all his favourites including snacks. Adeas must have cleared out the kitchen before he was hustled into the back room to use the employee shower. Everything, down to the spare set of clothes, was in his size. He wondered just how often he had come here.

“Do you remember anyone?” Ryet asked quietly as Adeas shrugged on a faded sports blazer. 

“Not everyone,” Adeas admitted. “I know Kyla, though I didn’t know she moved here. She used to have a place above ground but I guess that’s all gone now.” Lire, Heron and Jules, Moll but not her brother…” he trailed off. Ryet nodded to himself. 

“It really has just been this past year. Well, a lot can change in a year.” 

“Yeah, for starters I gained a disciple!” 

“Don’t exaggerate, I’m a servant, not a disciple.”

“That’s really what you’re unhappy about? Semantics?”

“I _am_ the least religious man alive.” Ryet said it like he was repeating a joke he only recently started to find funny.

“So, I’ve been wondering,” Adeas said cautiously. “I know we only just met, well, sort of, but are you a How or a Why?”

Ryet raised his eyebrows and Adeas mirrored his expression when he said, “A Why.” He looked nervous all of a sudden, unsure, anxious, his face which had been open was now shutting like a door. Still, he was waiting for Adeas’ reply.

Adeas blinked in surprise. “Really! Why the heck are you hanging around _me_?” At this, Ryet winced but Adeas went on. “I’m a Why too! I’m the Why-est of Whys!”

Ryet opened his eyes. “You’re…”

“Wait, but you should already know this because we’ve obviously been together for a whole year and you know, I look like this,” he waved a hand at himself. “I mean I know I wear a suit but it doesn’t cover the face. You know who I am, you probably know what I’ve done, what I represent. I’m obviously a Why!” He was waving his hands all over the place now. The small employee break room of the bar had terrible acoustics and Adeas winced, hoping that it at least had good soundproofing or the whole bar would hear them.

Now Ryet’s face was softening. “We’re not a pair,” he said, waving a hand between them. “Well, we-” he cut himself off with a sharp laugh. He shook his head and repeated, “We’re not a pair.”

“You’re telling me two Whys were travelling together? How did we not level the place? Wait, is that how...is that how I got reborn?” He felt a cold sinking in his gut. “Did I destroy that area? I guessed as much but I don’t know, I guess I was hoping that it would end differently from all the other times.”

“No, no!” Ryet said quickly, cutting Adeas off. “You didn’t destroy that area, well you sort of did, but it wasn’t your fault!” He went on, as if his words could push back the wave of guilt rising within Adeas. “You were a How, Ade!”

Adeas laughed in surprise. “Now that is ridiculous!”

“Look,” Ryet glanced around furtively at the cheap plastic sofas and the stained floor and then sighed. “Can we do this outside? I need a drink.” 

They went out into the bar where soft crooning music playing through the speakers and people sat around watching home videos on the television. There were less of them than before but there was one familiar face behind the counter. She smiled at Adeas. “Still hungry, Ade?”

“No, thanks, Kyla,” he said. “But maybe a glass of water?” He added sheepishly.

“Sure thing,” she said with a friendly smile. 

“Spirit,” Ryet said.

Kyla didn’t even look at him. “Forget about it.”

“Kyla!”

Ryet put a hand on Adeas’ forearm and shrugged. “It’s better if she’s angry at me than at you, A- Master Adeas.”

Adeas furrowed his brows but accepted the drink quietly when Kyla placed it in front of him. He waited as Ryet toyed with some toothpicks, snapping them in half until Kyla snatched away the box. Then he switched to shifting his shoulders, stretching his haunches like a cat ready to bolt.

“So…”

“You went to stop a How.”

“Oh right, yeah I do that,” Adeas said, slowly, noting the way Ryet said ‘you’ and not ‘we’. He kept an ear out for any more discrepancies between what the others had told him and what Ryet was saying. “That is, definitely something that I do. I stop Hows. Wait but did I succeed? I guess I did since I’m here, but I also died so-”

“So you did and you didn’t.” 

“I did and I didn’t.”

Ryet sighed, “The important point is that you did, but if you don’t really remember how or why you did it, then it won’t mean anything to you.”

“Not every victory is a win, but every win still counts as a victory right?”

“That...makes no sense.”

“So why did I die?”

Ryet grinned ruefully, “From my perspective, you defeated the How, and then you were just gone. But then, you almost fell on top of me in a landslide.”

“I hope I wasn’t wearing my favourite jumper.”

“Oh yeah,” Ryet said seriously. “The one with the ducks, right? It’s gone now.”

“No!” Adeas moaned mournfully, “I loved that duck pattern! I’ve had it for years!”

“If it’s the same one you remember, then I’m glad it’s gone,” Ryet said seriously, snapping the half of a toothpick he had in half, and then snapping that half into another half. There was a small smile playing on his lips and something like relief in his eyes. Adeas was curious, how much did this man know about him? He watched as the toothpicks got smaller and smaller until they were smaller than his finger.

“Is that what you can do?” Adeas asked, reaching over to pick up a piece of toothpick, not just a shard of wood. “Split things in- ow!” Adeas squeezed the finger, as if doing so would cause enough pressure to push out the splinter. When it didn’t move, he gave up, there wasn’t much you could do to dislodge something like that, you would just need to pull it out quick. His fingers were too thick and clumsy to manage anything like that. He cursed under his breath and Ryet laughed.

“Gave yourself a splinter, huh?”

“Like it’s my fault!” Adeas whined petulantly.

“Back to hurting Ade already, Rye?” Kyla asked, coming over with a cloth to sweep away the small pile of wood. It disappeared behind the counter, or rather, into her cloth. Her tone was light but there was hard set to her jaw, all the hostility in her words directed towards Ryet. He shut up immediately and turned his head, shoving his hands into his pockets. He mumbled an excuse and made to leave. 

Adeas put a hand on his arm. “Wait! Ryet! Why were you there?” 

Ryet stared at the hand until Adeas dropped it. Then he sighed, “That is one of the evils of being a Why, I’m always there.” Then he pulled away. Before Adeas could follow him, someone clapped him on the shoulder. 

A burly man sat down next to him. At first glance, he looked tough and ready to beat a man’s face in if he looked at him wrong. But the longer Adeas looked at him, the more he seemed to soften like ice cream in the sun. He had a delicate look about him, something about his eyes, the way his thick jacket clung to him, the texture of his beard, all looked like cotton. He grinned tiredly at Adeas. “You gave us a real scare, big guy.” That smile shrunk into a frown, “Ryet says you can’t remember anything from the past year.”

“Yeah, sorry, there’s you know, a real gap. Which is weird because this isn’t the first time I’ve been reborn, I’ve never forgotten anything,” Adeas said.

The man shrugged. “Well, stick around, maybe that’ll jog your memory.” Then he flashed Adeas a grin, “You remember me though, right?” He didn’t wait for Adeas to reply. “The biggest, baddest How in Redwell - Muffy.”

Even his name was soft. Here was a man he would trust to hold his spot in the queue while he ran to pick up a carton of milk. Adeas couldn’t’ help the smile that spread across his lips. “Hi Muffy, I’m Adeas Catchall, Sin Supreme, professional wanderer and the nicest Why you’ll find this side of the Post-Rapture epidimension.”


	3. Goodbye again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leaving town takes a while

Adeas talked for several hours straight until the bar had been emptied of people. It was only then that he realised the time that had been running of his back had left him soaked in lethargy. Kyla gave him a kind smile when he handed back his glass for a fifth refill. “You haven’t been plying me with alcohol, have you?” He asked suspiciously.

She held the glass under one of those bar guns with a million magical buttons and when she pressed on, clear liquid squirted out of the nozzle. He watched the bubbles rush into the glass and then, just as vigorously, they disappeared. “It’s just water,” she said, putting the glass in front of him. 

He drained the glass, finding the taste a bit more metallic than he would like but it was difficult to get treated water these days so he couldn’t complain. 

“I like your suit,” Kyla said. 

“Thanks, I needed help with the tie.” He studied the grains of the bar. “I guess I should thank you for letting me use the shower and for the food. Er, how much do I owe you?” 

Kyla raised an eyebrow. “Don’t be stupid, Ade. You never pay, did you forget that too?”

“I didn’t!” Adeas protested, but his shoulders dropped. “I just thought, you know, a lot could have changed.”

“That Why who always hangs around you already covered the tab.” She shook her head viciously. “I don’t want to know where he got the money.”

“So you moved here?” Adeas asked, keen to change what he figured was a sensitive topic that might end up with Kyla breaking several glasses. “When?”

She smiled at him, sad once again. “It sucks that you can’t remember.”

“Well, that’s what happens when your memories check out without letting you know,” Adeas said, trying for lighthearted. “Makes no sense but then again, all laws of biology sort of end where I begin.”

“Are you leaving again?” Kyla asked, and Adeas remembered her as a teenager screaming at him to go away and leave her and her parents alone. They had been dead for some time but she had found a large stick and was waving it at him. He couldn’t even call it brandishing, not when she was sweeping it like it would repel him by its stick-ness alone. She threatened to cut him into little pieces and make him disappear. He looked into her eyes as he did then, and saw the same fear-tinged anger riding beneath the surface. He wondered if she could ever make that disappear.

“I can’t stay. But I’ll come back,” he added. “How’s your How?” 

Before she could answer, a woman in a large black dress came bursting through the door. She looked like a bin bag exploding out of a skip. “Kyla! Thank god! We need you in the back. It’s Little Moll.” She looked at Adeas apologetically. “Sorry to interrupt. You look much better, Adie.”

“Thanks, Lire,” Adeas said. Lire’s lips quirked into a smile. She didn’t look much older from what he remembered, although she did have a fantastic new scar that ran from her hairline diagonally across her face, bisecting her fine features. She patted him twice on the arm and then dragged Kyla into the backroom.

Ryet emerged shortly after, an overnight bag slung over his shoulder. Adeas sat up, his skin tightened with the movement. “You’re leaving? Already?”

Ryet opened his mouth, brow furrowed. Adeas saw his shoulders tense, as if he was trying to curl in on himself. Adeas recognised it as the guilty slump of someone who knew he was not welcome, he practically patented the gesture. "You haven't had your drink yet," Adeas added, pathetically. "Weren't you thirsty?"

Ryet looked pointedly at the drained glass in Adeas' hand, his fifth, but the dig never came. "I drank from the tap, it's fine." He made to throw the overnight bag at Adeas in a gesture so practised it was almost habit but he pulled back at the last moment, as if he remembered himself and slung it back over his shoulder looking troubled. "I was uh, hoping you would be joining me." Then he added as an afterthought, "Master Adeas."

Adeas blinked. 

"Unless you have some other business left unattended?"

"This is all very fast isn't it? You haven't even taken me to dinner," Adeas joked. "And now you're spiriting me away."

"Actually," Ryet said out of the corner of his mouth.

"Oh god," Adeas said with dawning horror. "Did we-?"

"God, no!" 

"Oh, but you-"

"Nonono, fuck-"

"What was the nature of our relationship?" Adeas tried again, enunciating each word slowly and watching Ryet wince as if each syllable was a needle jabbing into his skin.

"Please don't ask that ever again," he said wearily.

"What kind of servant were you?!"

"The normal kind!" Ryet said. "Look this is great and all but you don't usually stay in one place all that long anyway so..."

That was true. It was a habit for Adeas to keep moving, never stopping for more than a day. Part of the reason was that he was seldom welcome, but… he looked around the bar. It was empty and a montage of home videos were still playing on the screen. He had seen some of them before, people doing unbelievable somersaults off roofs, cats getting scared by cucumbers, dash cams, and even idle talk at the camera. It was inviting and there were people who had come but they didn't stay.

He looked at Ryet, hair combed back, shirt tucked in, a carefully smoothed down look betrayed by the incessant tapping on the strap clutched in his hand and grey eyes that wouldn't stop shifting. Adeas got up, the stool creaking under him. Before he could think better of it, before he thought to say goodbye to Kyla or Lire, he led the way out of the door. 

Out under the endless grey sky, the pinched look on Ryet's face finally, finally relaxed. 

The city of Redwell was quiet and cold but what was more unnerving was the lack of shops. Aa far as Adeas could remember, this place was one of the busier post-rapture shopping districts, every last window crammed with branded clothing, electronics and food. Ryet had mentioned the New Whys razed the place to the ground but Adeas didn't recognise the name. Had they emerged in the last year? Could Factions emerge that quickly? 

"We need to make a stop," Ryet said, jerking a thumb across the street before crossing it. Adeas followed him into a darkened shop that looked empty by all accounts but it was not. 

"What, do the lights not work or something?" Adeas joked before a harsh beam of white light nearly blinded him. 

He heard a small chuckle. "Saves electricity." Then the light died down. "Oh." It was a flat _oh_ , stripped of its humour as the speaker realised who had entered the shop. "You're back."

His vision cleared and Adeas saw Ryet leaning leisurely against a counter so dented and abused he almost felt sorry for it. The manucomm shop they were standing in was as bare as he could have imagined with an empty magazine rack, a faded green chair and a cheap painting hung on the wall that looked like someone threw a palette at it and called it a day. The most robust looking thing in the shop was a tall potted plant in the corner and it was made of plastic. 

Adeas found the speaker standing behind the counter. A woman with curly hair who looked like she had been born frowning was threatening Ryet with one of those old-fashioned chop stamps. He held up his hands in surrender, “A return to sender wouldn’t work, they’re not around anymore.”

“Depends on the sender,” the woman said without missing a beat. She narrowed her eyes at Adeas who quickly averted his. “You’re quiet.”

“Should I not be?” He squawked.

“You did all the talking last time,” she said, squinting at him, but she at least put down the chop stamp.

“Well, you could say, I’m a whole new me,” Adeas said. His laughter promptly ran itself off a proverbial cliff when it saw the look on her face. 

“He’s telling the truth.”

“Isn’t that convenient for you,” she said. “I’ll reintroduce myself. Hettia. You’re still Adeas, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Adeas said, feeling more out of his depth than ever before. She didn’t extend her hand which was just as well because Adeas wasn’t prepared to shake it. Ryet gave him an encouraging smile and turned back to the conversation, handing Hettia a note with instructions to deliver it to the same sources. 

She frowned and ducked beneath the counter with the note. “This isn’t a damn post office,” she grumbled. Ryet rolled his eyes and nodded at Adeas. ‘It totally is,’ he mouthed. Hettia reappeared with a notepad on which she tore out a receipt for Ryet. 

“Best post office I’ve ever been to,” Ryet said, fanning himself with the receipt as they walked into the bank to deposit it. There was no one inside and there was only one working machine. Ryet punched in the numbers and lifted his wrist to scan his chip implant. The screen flashed red and he muttered darkly, “Running low.”

“Don’t look at me.”

“Oh believe me, I know. No chip, no funds, just the skin on your back and the same suit, every time.”

Adeas tried to cross his arms and remembered the last time he did that, his jacket ripped. He tucked his hands into his pockets and tried not to look as uncomfortable as he felt. “One likes to look snappy. At least in public.”

“It’s a farce, and looks gross on you.” Ryet’s smile faded. “Master Adeas,” he added. 

“Why do you call me that?” Adeas said, wrinkling his nose. “You’re obviously comfortable with me, and like everyone says, you and I have been travelling together for a _year_.”

Ryet opened his mouth.

He closed it again.

“The Factions should receive news of the Why you killed soon enough. Someone will pay us soon.”

They had reached the edge of the town where the buildings stopped, like someone had arbitrarily decided that there was enough of Redwell and summarily destroyed every building past that point. Ryet climbed the rubble one step at a time until he reached the top and Adeas scrambled after him. “After you, Master Adeas,” he said belatedly. 

A piece of rubble crumbled under Adeas and he raised his hand in an aborted movement, as if to put his hand on Ryet’s shoulder to steady himself. He let it drop.


	4. Walk on

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to Sifl for 'nasty dirty earth vag stink'

Post-rapture, geopolitical, cultural and religious boundaries no longer mattered and yet, unable to handle all the grey, people drew lines so thick you could feel it wherever you went.

"But who cares when the lines are drawn by people," Ryet said, snapping a steel pipe in half. "Anything man-made can be changed anytime, because if they've done it once, they can do it again. The only thing they can't do," he said, halving the wires in the way. "Is undo."

Adeas stepped through the path Ryet had made for them. It was strange how Ryet knew to make sure all the rubble up to Adeas' height was cleared before leading him through it. He was used to ducking and dodging, twisting and turning to manoeuvre his body through the world. They moved from Redwell to Hulls, the cities blending into each other with pockets of still-intact buildings and streets.

The moment the road opened up, Ryet took two strides to the right, giving Adeas a wide berth. Up until then, Ryet had patiently waited for Adeas to match him step for step while they worked their way through the twisted metal and concrete. Adeas made it a point to never ask people what they thought of him. Of all the years he had been alive, the answer was always a variation on the same theme. Ryet had been travelling with him for a year, Adeas couldn't expect his answer to be any more enlightened. 

But there was one thing he was wondering.

"Where are we going?" Adeas said. 

Ryet stopped so suddenly, Adeas had to backtrack. "You remember why we, you, travel right?"

"I called it wandering-"

"Travelling-"

"I like wandering-"

"How can it be wandering if we know where we're going!" Ryet exploded. It sounded rehearsed, like he was used to saying the words so often it conjured a mixture of different emotions with passion at the forefront. The lamp lights blinked on although the sky was still the same shade of grey.

"I'm sorry," Adeas said. "You don't have to come along. This is something I have to do alone."

"No, nonono, I don't-" Ryet sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I was kidding. I'm sorry Master Adeas."

"That hasn't changed, has it?" Adeas asked. 

"What?"

"It’s been a year, I could be a firefighter for all I know. Maybe I got a house. I don’t know and no one back at Kyla’s knew either. They all said you were the only one who knew."

"No, we-" He cut himself off. "Did you hear that?"

The low moan that leaked into the streets became impossible to ignore. Adeas searched for the source, seeing lights wink off one by one as everyone retreated into their homes and embraced their other half. They were in a neighbourhood that was still standing in every sense of the word except for the one that really counted, it had by all accounts, lain down in defeat. 

Adeas followed Ryet down a narrow alley where they spilled out onto another street. At the base of a dark building was a single light shining out of the basement. They entered the building and descended below the streets. There were three identical doors, but only one had light seeping from the bottom. Ryet slammed his shoulder against it and then, it folded in half, depositing him onto the floor.

A few feet in front of him, Adeas saw what was very clearly a How cradling a limp body in her arms. He knew she was a How because the body of a boy in her arms was slowly darkening, the hand that grazed her grey skirt looked like a stain. She looked up and saw the two men in her house and a harsh, animalistic snarl ripped itself from her throat. Adeas rocked back on his heels and then charged into the small apartment.

The Untethered were dangerous, unPaired their question threatened to spill out of them and into the world. But even without a pair, they could still travel alone as long as they had strong control of their question. Adeas unravelled the Split How’s question word by word from her throat, handling each letter like a red hot knife.

When it was done, the How, drained and pale, lay very still. Adeas, kneeling, sat back on his heels, his jacket shredded beyond belief. Ryet lowered his arm from his face. Adeas reached up one hand and tore the pieces from his shoulders. Then he arranged the How beside her Why and put his hands together, palm to bleeding palm, and closed his eyes. 

The house was very quiet now. Adeas opened his eyes and, through the window, saw the lights come on one by one along the streets. Two strong hands gripped Adeas under his arms and hauled him to his feet. “We’ll get you a new jacket, Master Adeas.”

They spent the night at the house. Ryet used a bedroom door to replace the front door. He joked that no one would come in either way but Adeas couldn’t laugh. He was busy meditating. 

Ryet hadn't said much since Adeas woke up except to answer his questions. When he spoke unprompted, he usually stopped after a while, as if uncomfortable with leading the conversation when he had done so freely just moments before. As he fixed dinner for them, however, he was content to talk on and on. It was a pleasant low-pitched hum that droned on in the background as Adeas thought about the woman’s question.

When he pulled it out of her, he had to deconstruct it. Just like pulling a camel through the eye of a needle, the only way to remove a question was to pull it apart or shrink it. He had done the former, but it was strong enough to reassemble itself in his mind. He usually spent this part alone, digesting the question, processing it. 

‘How do we connect with others?’

It was not his question. His was shorter, which, as everyone knew, made it more complicated. He had spent years pondering it, dissecting it and peering at it from all angles. There was no easy answer but he felt that wandering was a process that helped to answer it.

The woman’s question was more confusing, however. It had assumptions and preconceptions; it took into account the asker, their mental state and social capabilities; it could encompass entire cultures, societies, or just refer to a single person - it could take a lifetime to answer.

He was lucky. If he had waited too long to tackle it, it might have festered within her and caused an implosion. That usually happened with people who had Split from their pairs.

Ryet covered the woman and boy with a blanket. Ryet said that members of the local Faction would come to collect them in the morning to disseminate the remains. The Faction, he said, was fairly neutral. "They don't pick fights," he said, handing Adeas a bowl of something hot and runny. It was sweet and salty but in a pleasant way. 

Ryet put on a home video on the old LCD screen where a child stood by a tree and unwrapped a present with unadulterated glee. The screen was warped with a halo of ever-changing colours encircling the child's face. Adeas looked at the blanket on the ground and wondered. 

He was still wondering when he opened his eyes. Ryet was waiting for him in the front room watching a home video of chicken flying. His bag was packed and placed at the foot of the armchair Ryet was sat in. The blanket was gone, leaving only an empty space on the floor. "Ready to go?" 

Adeas' head felt heavy, weighted. It seemed to nod of its own accord. "Come on, the further you get from the place, the quieter the question will be. Physical distance can also translate to mental distance," Ryet said. 

There wasn't anything Ryet wanted to get away from although he knew he couldn't stay. Adeas was done thinking and was ready to ask more questions, but he let Ryet talk clouds into the grey sky anyway.


	5. Aid us

There was no more light. But there was also no more darkness. Two large hands had descended from above and reached out from below to scoop them up, ripping them from the world and ripping the world from them.

Mush. That was what he had crawled out of. A hill of pure mush that squealed and squelched as he stepped down, following the sounds of people calling out “Aid us! Aid us, please! We need help! Please send us aid! Aid us!”

Adeas woke. His shirt was soaked all the way through with sweat, it stuck to him like a second skin. He tugged the collar away from him, turning away from the fire until the heat no longer clung to him. Ryet made a noise. He was still awake, minding the fire, having reassured Adeas that he would take first watch. “Master Adeas?” He inquired after Adeas in that same measured tone of deference that masked a bundle of emotions - concern, respect, frustration. If Adeas could get Ryet to lay them all out on the table, perhaps…

Maybe it didn’t matter. Ryet had made it quite clear he would not leave his side even if they were two Whys. Everyone in the epidimension could excuse their way out of anything, it made their own questions more bearable and Adeas was an expert.

Sleep forgotten, Adeas pushed himself up on his elbow to watch the fire as Ryet fed it with scraps of paper with big and small letters. It crackled and licked the grey, flicking little embers upwards. Ryet was still wearing that same dark blue shirt from when they left Hull, a bandage wrapped around his left arm. His eyes drifted shut ever so often, but he stared resolutely into the fire, jaw tight in thought. 

Ryet said that he was a Why, and Adeas believed him, he couldn’t be anything else. Adeas rolled over onto his back, the clouds packed tight over the overgrown city. They were somewhere in between two cities again where buildings and trees were almost indistinguishable. What Adeas knew was that they were leaning against what remained of a brick building completely netted with climbing plants and Ryet had hung his bag on the vines.

There was still the issue of them travelling together. Historically, two questions of the same kind did not mix well, hence the different Factions.

“We’re not in a Faction are we?”

Ryet smiled reflexively and responded in that same measured tone. “No, Master Adeas. We’re still terrifyingly lone wanderers.”

Adeas wasn’t sure if Ryet had said “terrified”, “terrifying” or “terrifyingly” but since it was an answer and not a question, it wasn’t that important. He nodded to himself. 

So Ryet wasn’t paired, yet the whites of his eyes were still visible and Adeas hadn’t heard a single syllable of his question, his control must be exceptional. At this point he could easily relent to the inevitable. Ryet had travelled with him for a whole year without any obvious problems and he seemed determined to continue to do so.

If only it were that simple, but nothing was simple after the Rapture.

When all was said and done, and the black was separated from the white, sent to their respective corners, those stuck in the grey were left with questions. Some asked How, others asked Why. 

‘There’s no such thing as a bad question. Just a bad answer.’ That was the dangerous lie that had spread far and wide back then. 

All was chaos for a while, but people quickly paired up, settling down with their respective How or Why to hold everything together. Adeas tried to picture Ryet settling in a town somewhere, occupying himself with rote work to keep his question at bay. Maybe he’d even become even more heavily involved with Faction work. Adeas himself had never joined a Faction. They were too overwhelming. Ryet’s impeccable control would be invaluable. Maybe he would join one once he found his own How. 

Ryet sneezed and scooted closer to the fire. “You’re staring.”

Adeas laughed sheepishly, “You could tell?”

Ryet shrugged. “I’m used to it by now. You must be wondering what you missed in the past year.”

Adeas laughed louder, this time to cover his embarrassment. “I am, but there’s so much I missed I don’t know where to start.”

“Aren’t you at all curious about how you died? Becoming a How?”

“I figured that was a joke at my expense.”

“It wasn’t.” 

Adeas looked away. That was what he was afraid of. There was an idea he had a long time ago but he never thought…

He tested his question, felt it on his tongue just as strongly as before. It was the same as always, solid and incomprehensible. He had the idea to ask if they were paired, just as a joke, but he found that he didn’t want to know the answer. Or maybe because he wasn’t sure if he knew the answer and that was what made him so nervous. “Can I ask you a question?”

There. Ryet was looking at him like he was a small child again. “Sure, anything.” Adeas was almost two heads taller than Ryet standing so Adeas told himself this was a feat only accomplished because Adeas was lying down.

“Did I complete my mission?”

He had been travelling with Ryet for a year, there was no way he wouldn’t have told Ryet what he had set out to do, not when it was the whole purpose of his existence. 

“...No.”

“Really? Well, I guess it’s not that surprising, it’s not like the champion of the Hows is that easy to find, right? They must have evaded me because the last thing I remember I had picked up a trail that led me to a golden field…” He trailed off, frowning. “No, wait, it wasn’t golden, they just called it that, but that was a nickname.” Adeas pressed his fingers to his head, as if they would stop the onslaught of flashes. A green field with orange flowers.

“Master Adeas?” Ryet moved closer to him. “Master Adeas? What’s wrong?”

Adeas blinked. “Nothing, I just thought I remembered something. But I suppose not.”

Ryet sat back on his heels. “You lost a whole year, it will take time to come back.”

"If it comes back at all." Adeas lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “It’s just one year out of hundreds. Practically a nap.”

“Yeah.” Ryet still lingered, kneeling beside Adeas, one hand on his leg. “Of course, Master Adeas.” 

He was going to say something else, instead he stood, looking around. This time he didn't have to say it, Adeas heard it. 

Hull had thick buildings but the population density was lower out here and Adeas heard the question clear as glass. Or perhaps that was simply because the How was broadcasting it for all the world to hear.

"What the hell are they thinking? It’s attracting Answers. We need to go-"

"No, I’m going," Adeas said, getting to his feet.

"Don’t, A-! Master Adeas! It’s getting Answers!" Ryet said, voice rising in frustration when his bag didn't come off the vines. It was stuck tight. 

"They’re never the right ones." 

"Master Adeas-!" Ryet's voice disappeared into the distance as Adeas ran towards the sound. 

When questions first arose within the first of those left behind, they were insidious. People first mistook them as doubts but people already had doubts, ‘Is that really it? There’s nothing left?’ and ‘Surely this can’t be what we waited for?’. Questions were something else altogether. 

Adeas leapt through a building that had been split right down the middle like it was a great canyon, nearly slipping on moss when he landed. He could feel the buzz of Answers in the air, itchy, useless, bothersome things that bit you like insects, crept under your skin and crawled into your brain. They were everywhere, streaming in from the surrounding buildings, responding to the siren call of the question being asked. Adeas saw a swarm of the things converged upon a single point like some hellish cloud. 

Most were concentrating on the question being asked but as Adeas grew nearer, some began to break away to buzz in his ear, needle at his skin, tens, then hundreds, then thousands of little pinpricks would soon be upon him. He didn’t stop. He tore off his sleeves, wrapped his hands in the cloth to make makeshift gloves and got ready to reach in. 

He was mere feet away from the cloud when he heard a muffled “no” among the harsh buzzing. Then, “No, no, no, not you, not you either. You’re all _wrong!_ ”

Adeas was shoved backwards. 

No one touched him, there was just this invisible force that _pushed_ him back. Stronger than anything, and he had once caught a falling building.

He took a step back, then two, and then because he didn’t fall, he flew, back, back into the wall of the building behind him. When he could open his eyes again, the Answers were gone. They had been blown back as well, it seemed, in a radius that extended from a point right in front of him, and they were smashed against the buildings or lay like black stains on the ground. 

Gravity peeled Adeas off the wall and he fell heavily onto the ground. 

He took a few moments before he could get up, before irritation and dirt and all that other junk existed once more for him. 

“Hey.”

Something else existed. The How who stood before him in bright red pumps, muddied at the soles, and a long skirt that hung above the ankles but swished up dust clouds in the rubble, above that was a waistcoat with a bright yellow tie and a look of concern sitting above it, tying the whole look together with a ponytail.

“What are you doing on the ground?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments appreciated as always! Let me know in the comments if this update schedule is suitable.


	6. Stranger

Pira. 

That was her name. 

It sounded like the kind of name that you'd hear about in rumours, or on the circulation boards floating around cities. 

Well his encounter with Pira already felt like a rumour itself - a question spoken aloud, swarms of answers, and that massive force that flung away everything within a ten foot radius. Pira looked like a tornado in a jam jar just sitting there grinning madly at them. 

Adeas was trying to button up his shirt. Ryet had a new one ready for him, just pulled it out of the bag and handed it to him. Adeas wondered how many more shirts he had in the bag. In fact, what exactly did the bag hold? It apparently had dehydrated food bars, clothes, lighters, matches, a first aid kit, ponchos, one glittery pink pen and one blue ballpoint pen, two videotapes, a camera, and that was only what he had seen Ryet take out of it.

The buttons were difficult to manage given the scene unfolding in front of him. Pira for the most part, looked both at ease and incredibly uncomfortable. "It's the fire," she explained, "it's too hot," smiling as if she wanted it to be put out. 

Ryet was trying to drill holes into her using only his eyes and Adeas wondered if he could split people and from a distance. "You could leave," he said. 

"Who are you again?" She asked. 

"That's what we should be asking you!"

"She's Pira." "I'm Pira. I just said that." "She just said that."

"Could you not interrupt Master Adeas while he’s speaking?”

“Don’t drag me into this,” Adeas said. They ignored him.

“How did you end up travelling with this rat bastard, Adeas Catchall?” Pira jerked an unkind thumb at Ryet who scowled. “And why is he calling you master?” Ryet shifted deliberately towards the bag sitting by Adeas. He began to rifle through it, sifting through its unknowable contents. “Hey, Rat Boy, you let your master here run right into danger.”

“He wouldn’t have been in danger in the first place if you hadn’t been shouting your question to the whole world, drawing in Answers from every which where and almost bringing the city down on top of us!” Ryet took out a long collapsible stick from the bag and swung it outwards in one swift movement so it snapped together with a crack. Then he pointed it at Pira so the tip was lined with her nose. Tilting his head up, he told her to get lost.

She pushed the stick aside with her middle finger. “There’s no need to be rude, Rat Boy.”

Adeas reached over and pulled the stick further down. “Ryet…”

“You’re from a Faction,” Ryet said accusingly. 

Something dislodged itself in Adeas’ gut and the rest of his insides came loose, he shifted to accommodate the pooling of unease. As much as he would rather be ambivalent towards the Factions which operated in the background as they did for so many people, he could not deny that his actions affected them just as much as he could not deny that they were watching him and had been for many years. If he was with Ryet and he had been travelling for a year, he most probably was still not aligned to a Faction, but they had approached him before and there was always the possibility of them approaching him again. 

Pira didn’t respond. 

“You’ve come for Master Adeas.” Ryet stood protectively between him and Pira despite being only slightly taller than her. Adeas was easily larger than them both yet Ryet was brandishing a stick at a stranger for his sake. 

Adeas kept his hand on the stick.

For all that Adeas wasn't certain if he could trust Ryet, this stick might be proof he could.

Adeas’ life was so weird.

Pira sighed. “Oh don’t be so dramatic, I’m not here to kidnap him. Look at him, Adeas Catchall, 7 foot tall mini-giant, wanderer, Sin Bin, or whatever you go by these days, the biggest Why in existence! He climbed a literal mountain of questions, absorbing so many it would have exploded a lesser man.” She looked at once envious and in awe. “All the Answers in the world couldn’t carry you off.” 

Then she pulled out a padlet with the tiniest screen Adeas ever saw, it was smaller than her hand. “We have money,” she said by way of explanation, then she waved it in their direction where it gave two sharp beeps. “And now you have money.”

“Master Adeas…”

“This is just a gift, as thanks for attempting to save me.” She stood, brushing off her long skirt and straightening her waistcoat. She looked back at their astonished faces. “Alright, so it was a bribe for marking your location, Adeas Catchall and,” she smiled as she read it off the screen. “Ryet Clear. That's a freebie for you, Adeas Catchall."

Adeas tried not to look like someone who had blindly followed a stranger for days without knowing his full name. 

Pira pocketed the padlet. “Now, I have other things to do. Not better than you,” she said with a coy smile. “But other things.”

Adeas stood, it caused the cement block to dislodge itself from the ground but no one was sitting on it anyway. He forgot he was even sitting because everyone was finally at eye level. "You caused all that disruption, all that chaos, and now you’re just leaving?”

“Your guard dog won’t let me stay.”

“That’s because you're a How," Ryet said, pointing the stick at her with renewed vigour.

"No," she said plainly. "I'm a What." 

Then she stepped out of the clearing.

Adeas stared as Pira’s back retreated down a narrow alley overgrown with bushes until the leaves sprang up to conceal her exit.

In the silence that followed, Ryet huffed out a breath in disbelief. "What the fuck, eh?" There was a smile in his voice that Adeas bewildered to hear. 

"What?"

The smile was gone when he turned to look at Ryet. He could feel Ryet's lips creak further downwards into a frown. "Nevermind, sorry," he coughed.

\--

"Favourite spread?"

"Jam."

"What kind?"

"Any kind. Sweet."

"Meat?"

"Red."

"Drink."

"Spirit."

"That's expensive."

Ryet sighed and stopped. "Why are we doing this again?"

"Keep moving,” Adeas said shortly and stiffly.

They were standing on a bridge suspended between two sunken skyscrapers. Sunken was probably the wrong word to describe it. What had happened was that the sea level had risen in a worldwide flood, sloshing over coastal cities and burying all its buildings or whatever passed for buildings. Then, following a series of earthquakes almost unnoticed in a long list of natural disasters that occurred one after the other, the water drained out, leaving only the tops protruding from silt and sludge sloughing off into deep canyons. 

Nomads had slung bridges across the roofs to cross the cities, but the cities eroded so quickly that many routes were often dissolved as quickly as they formed. And then when people realised Pairing was safer than remaining alone, they settled down in their cities of choice and left the bridges and roads to rot.

This bridge was made of alloy slats strung together with cable that was cheap to make and install as easily as it was eaten away by acid rain and other things. Any movement from a careful step to a steady nod caused the rickety structure to sway like a pendulum, but Ryet less concerned than he should be with the prospect of potentially plummeting to his death. 

In fact he seemed to be enjoying it, the sadistic fuck.

"Look at you, we've barely moved.”

“That’s because you stopped.”

“Answering or moving?”

“Both,” Adeas gritted out, trying to loosen his grip so that the cable didn’t snap in his grip.

“Twenty questions was your idea, so was crossing the bridge at the same time." 

"Well if either of us goes first and the bridge breaks, the other won't have a chance to get across."

”I thought you'd prefer to be separated from me."

"Don't be stupid," Adeas huffed. "If we were separated you would leap in after me and you can't be reborn. And," he added. “I’d feel bad if I let you fall.”

Ryet’s eyes softened, Adeas was getting quite used to the feeling of bewilderment now at these sparks of affection shot his way. He wasn’t entirely sure he had earned it, a year of being on his best behaviour couldn’t possibly have made up for a century of sins, but he wasn’t in any state to do any mental gymnastics to deflect these so he just bore it as well as he did anything.

The bridge swayed and Adeas gripped tighter. “Can you move now? This bridge is going to break any second now.”

“You’re exaggerating,” Ryet said, but he mercifully took another step forward. The bridge complained at a new place being put under stress but Ryet forged on. “Look, we’re almost there, Master Adeas.”

He stepped off the bridge and onto the half-buried skyscraper, finding purchase in the steel frame. Immediately the cable snapped up with the lightened load and Adeas got a very visceral image of a rubber band being stretched and released until it snapped in two. He ran towards the end of the bridge, legs extended, feet pointed.

His loafers hit the glass surface of the skyscraper’s slanted roof, it was as sharp as a thumbtack and shaped like a wedge of cheese that sloped down an almost 90 degree incline. So he ran and didn’t, or rather, couldn’t stop.

“Move!” Adeas yelled.

Ryet did not move.


	7. Monster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What makes a man a monster?

What makes a man a monster? 

Is it appearance? Something that deviated from the norm, the arbitrary beauty of defined features, clear eyes, smooth skin? Perhaps sunken eyes, features with beast-like proportions and skin of fur, feathers, scale, maybe even incorporeal limbs? Would anything other, stretched out of proportion to a being so terrible it would be unimaginable, so removed from human and therefore monstrous? 

Is it thought? The formless words that float around the unfathomable mind? Unspeakable ideas that are inhumane, devoid of all morality and so steeped with cruelty that not only do they offend, they literally rip the concept of ethics to shreds?

Or is it action? When finally from our shapeless thoughts are born action, choices, ways to interfere and irrevocably change the course of the world, divert its stream down a dark stream bent to a selfish and wretched desire?

Or...

"Can you shut up," Adeas said. "I'm busy."

He was still running at full pelt towards Ryet who refused to move. There was no time to change his course, no time to take out his stick and drive it into the building. Ryet had his arms outstretched as if he was ready to stop a speeding truck with just his body, unwilling to let Adeas plunge into the darkness alone.

Adeas got the idea that Ryet had done this before because of how irritatingly prepared he was. 

There was only one thing to do. 

Adeas shut his eyes and asked a Question. 

He knew which one to ask, he had heard it from a man who stood at the top of a mountain, one foot off the edge. He asked it quietly, whispered it quietly enough so that the wind carried it away. He grabbed Ryet by the arms and lifted him along, "Keep running!" 

The Answers came quickly, appearing seemingly out of nowhere, apparating like spirits in the air. They shot towards Adeas in large black clumps, the many becoming the one.

Adeas leapt off the slanted roof and stepped on one. Normally a swarm of Answers couldn't hold up one argument let alone a multitude of questions, that was why they dealt in large numbers. But Adeas didn't need them to hold him up, he just needed a boost.

He hoped from swarm to swarm, trying to look for the largest swarms, stepping as lightly as he could to buoy himself off the crawling things and propel them towards another building. 

"Master Adeas!" Ryet shouted.

The Answers were growing thinner in numbers and Adeas saw that they weren't going to make it to the other side.

This time Ryet did move. He threw his stick as hard as he could and it lodged into the side of the building at an angle. Adeas stepped on it and it arced so heavily that for a moment he was afraid it would not hold their weight. 

"Fuck, come on, come on!"

It flung them upwards and sent them crashing through the window. 

They lay sprawled in the broken glass for a long time. Finally Ryet let out a wheeze, "Can you get off me now?"

Adeas jostled a desk and an old desktop monitor toppled over. "Ouch!" He closed his eyes. Don't ask, don't ask, he thought. Then he opened his mouth. "Why didn't you move?" _Fucking._

"...You don't remember."

"It literally just happened-"

"I mean, you don't remember the past year, you don't remember me. If you did, you would know."

"Okay," Adeas said, drawing out the word to show that it was in fact, not okay. "So tell me."

Ryet turned over and got up. They had landed in the middle of an abandoned office filled with rows of desks and desktops, a photocopier on either end of the floor and a potted plant at relevant intervals. Ryet sat on one of the roller chairs and began to roll down the tilted floor. He wedged himself in a desk and picked out the glass from his clothes. He flung his bag from his shoulder onto the desk and picked through it for another shirt. "You used to follow me around, you know? It was hella annoying."

"I must have made a great shadow."

"Haha, I was just trying to get away from the monster." He rolled himself a cigarette and stuck it in his mouth. "I hate this stuff but I'm not telling you anything without it, so you're just going to have to put up with it."

Adeas watched Ryet light the end and take a resentful puff. 

"I thought it was all bullshit at first. You, your 'mission', but not more bullshit than the Factions. Yeah, no shit I was part of them, everyone is. Except you." He waved his cigarette at Adeas. 

This was where the discrepancy lay, Adeas thought. Between what he used to think of me and what he wants me to think. 

"You just travel everywhere, sorry, _wander,_ like a tornado, ripping questions out of people everywhere you went. What were the Factions _supposed_ to think? The one bit of power they regained post-Rapture at risk of being taken away again?"

"Those questions would have destroyed the world.”

“Do you know what they’ve developed? Machines to do what you do.”

“Like your stick,” Adeas said. 

Ryet sucked in a breath and choked. “How did you know that?”

Adeas pointed. “Right there. Right at the throat. That’s where you pointed it. You were going to rip it out of her.”

“I didn’t.”

“You were going to.”

“I wouldn’t have.”

“Maybe if I wasn’t there.”

“I don’t even think about that anymore,” Ryet said sharply. “I don’t even consider it. I can’t.”

He wondered how many conversations they had with Ryet looming over him. Maybe Ryet felt he would be most honest this way, or just safer. “But the stick was meant for me,” Adeas said. 

Ryet didn’t say anything. When Adeas craned his head up, he saw Ryet putting out his cigarette, leaving it to burn into the plastic desk. 

"A question is like a grenade everyone holds in their chest. The Factions are the dealers, the hoarders, they keep order, Pair people up, keep people safe within the cities."

"And I'm ripe for the picking."

"They think you're a farm. No, a farmer. Like a storehouse or a granary or some _mineable resource-_ " Ryet snapped a monitor in half. "I won't let them touch you," he said fiercely. Then he deflated and ran a hand through his hair. His shirt was stained with dried blood. "That's it. That's all."

"That's it?"

"Yeah."

"Really?"

"Yes. Master Adeas." Ryet added as an afterthought.

"You liar," Adeas scoffed. "You expect me to believe you just had a change of heart, wanting to protect my honour from the big bad Factions who, you probably already know this but, I've fended off in the past. And you've decided to tag along to help me save the world even though you don't believe it can be saved?"

"That's not important."

"Yeah right! You were willing to play airbag to my crash landing earlier!"

"I would've figured something out on the way down," Ryet said, sounding uncomfortable. "Anyway, I've made my choice. Why I did...is not important. The rest is up to you."

Adeas laughed bitterly. "Sure, I get to choose now." He sat up. "Wait...I get to choose?"

"Yes-"

"No, but, of course. But why have I been following you all this time?"

"Because you weren't in any capacity able to make any real choices so I simply resumed our journey-"

"Wait but I'm still following you," Adeas said. 

"No," Ryet said slowly. "Master Adeas. Not technically."

"Oh...okay." Adeas stood up. His head grazed the ceiling. "Well. Now that we've established that I'm the one calling the actual shots including where to shoot, like in an I'm-in-charge-but-not-in-a-murder-way, that means I get to say where we go next. No, don't answer, it's too late. I've already decided. This is the decision shoe falling. The first shoe fell like almost two weeks ago and no one really told me there was another shoe, so like I've taken off the shoe and let it drop. My feet are bare now and I'm putting it down. I'm putting down the barest foot, here it comes, with all its toes. Count 'em."

Ryet stood up. "So what's your decision, Master Adeas?"

Adeas looked out of the broken window they came crashing through, at the skyscrapers sinking into the underworld. He breathed in dust. 

"I'm going to take a vacation."


	8. T Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy February! Where would be a good place to vacation after the world ended?

Ryet accepted Adeas' decision with no small amount of confusion and bemusement. "A vacation? You mean like the home videos? Of all the fancies that have struck you, Master Adeas, this one is surely the strangest.”

They had to reach the next city first, unfortunately, one with a working transporter. No one walked in the Post-Rapture world, they teleported. Not only was the landscape harsher and swarming with unwanted Answers, walking gave people time to think, too much time, and that meant they were more likely to ask their question. Which equalled…

"Don't say-"

"Bad news bears," Adeas said. 

"God...dammit," Ryet sighed. He cast a glance over his shoulder, as if half-expecting the large furry creatures to come parading out of the city ruins. "Why do we need to head to a transporter terminal? They're disgusting and it’s always a coin toss as to where you end up."

“I have a specific place in mind.”

Ryet grunted in a grim acceptance that Adeas had come to associate with him. They trudged through the wet mud which was slowly swallowing the city of Glass, sucking it one floor per decade into the earth. "The longest blowjob in history," Adeas remarked. 

"The longest vore," Ryet corrected gently, like a teacher pointing out that phone didn't start with the letter F. He pulled another collapsible stick from his bag. 

How many of those did he have in there, Adeas wondered. How bottomless was the bag? He watched as Ryet used it to vault over a large swamp that stood in their way.

"I suppose we were good friends," Adeas said finally. 

Ryet was too far away to hear him. "Hm? What was that, Master Adeas?" 

"Nothing," Adeas muttered. Then he let Ryet guide him around the swamp from a higher vantage point. The sky remained staunchly, stubbornly grey.

\--

The city of Hearshe was, thankfully, sparsely populated, which meant that the transporter terminal was relatively empty if not small. Adeas doubted for a moment that it was even connected to the t-terminal but a quick glance at the signage reassured him that it was still used frequently.

Contrary to Ryet’s concerns, apart from a blanket of grey dust coating every surface, the terminal was in a serviceable state. It enjoyed a fair amount of foot traffic as presently a pair stepped off the platform and exited the terminal just as they entered. Another pair could be seen sitting quietly on a bench nearby, craning their necks to watch home videos playing on the television screen mounted on the corner of the wall. Adeas recognised a clip, which was rare considering every city had its own selection of home videos it kept on rotation.

“I recognise that one,” Adeas said, pointing to the screen. “The man’s just burst into the bathroom to rant into the mirror but it will turn out that the mirror is actually a glass screen.”

They watched the clip for a minute as it played out exactly as Adeas had said. “See?” Adeas said proudly. “I never forget a good rant.”

“You must have passed here before,” Ryet said.

“I don’t think so.”

“Maybe they’re finally bored of their videos and decided to swap them.”

“Can they do that?” 

“Why not? Pre-rapture they used to trade information all the time.”

“How can you call what plays on the television ‘information’?” Adeas said, voice rising, causing the pair to tear their eyes at the screen and look over. Their faces changed rapidly and they got up quickly to leave. 

“Don’t report us for earth’s sakes!” Ryet called after them. “I’ll snap you in two!”

Adeas frowned. “We’ll be gone soon enough, did you really need to threaten them?” Ryet flinched, as if he’d been caught doing something terrible. 

He looked like he was about to apologise but there came a squeal from the other side of the terminal. A man, face pale with fear, had backed himself against the wall. He looked like he was about to piss himself. 

That was fine. Adeas preferred fear over rage when others encountered him. The last few cities had been kind to him. Kyla and the city of Redwell had contained plenty of old friends, but Adeas was always travelling to new places and the people were not always kind enough to stay indoors and out of his way. The girl, Pira, had been kind as well, in an odd way, seeing as she seemed to know all there was to know about him already.

Having to explain himself to others was where the fear and rage arose, that gap in understanding that widens every time there’s a difference in expectations. 

Ryet seemed angry. “Get lost then,” he shouted at the man. “Get outta here! No one wants your lousy question!”

The man did move then, stumbling over his own legs, away from the vending machines he was perusing, to escape out the other exit. Ryet sighed. “I only yelled at him because you would have been more unhappy if I killed him,” he said. “Master Adeas.”

He opened his bag and handed Adeas a small cloth before marching up to the vending machines without a second look back. Adeas stood there for a while, and then held the cloth up to his face to discreetly dab at his eyes.

He stuffed the cloth into his pocket when he was done and joined Ryet at the machines. They blinked invitingly, looking sultry with their display of provisions, tools and clothing. Ryet had already bent to restock his bag, filling it with clean shirts, packages of food, firestarter kits…

“I hate to use that filthy bribe that girl gave us, but credits are credits.”

Adeas watched him pack, endlessly curious about the bag. He had heard about new technologies being developed, Factions experimenting with imbuing objects with questions. He tried to imagine the question behind the bag. He could afford to do that since he already had so many, but he would have to be careful with his thoughts. Would it have been a How? Or a Why?

If it were a How...perhaps it was “How could you hold more than you were?”

Or if it were a Why, “Why can’t we be more than our worth?”

Or perhaps he was approaching the question all wrong. Maybe instead of questioning one’s limits, it would explore infinite possibilities.

“-want anything? Master Adeas? Master Adeas!” Ryet gripped Adeas’ shoulders, or as far as he could reach up Adeas’ arms and shook him firmly. “You need to stop asking questions!”

Adeas snapped out of it immediately but it takes longer to disperse a question that’s been asked.

The air crackled with energy, thickening with the feeling of wonder. Even the steel-enforced roof was not enough to hold back that much natural curiosity. Anyone would crack under such pressure, such interrogation, and a steel roof is nothing but a piece of paper when it comes to a good question. 

It tore.

Ryet wrapped his arms around Adeas and launched them out of the way of a falling piece of roof. “Fuck! What was that about!” 

“Ohhh,” Adeas groaned, burying his face in his hands. “Don’t ask. It just leaked out.”

“Fine start to a vacation.” Ryet picked his bag up off the floor and skirted around the bits of roof littering the floor. “Let’s get out of here quick, the local Faction won’t be happy we fucked up their transport terminal. Key in your coords and it’s go.”

Adeas nodded dispiritedly. The terminal beeped in protest but the cracked screen allowed Adeas to punch in the numbers. It almost gave up halfway but Adeas’ years of practise trumped over his fat thumbs and he managed not to smash the screen completely. 

The transporter whirred to life, the double platform meant to hold a pair lit up and Adeas and Ryet stepped on. “Here we go,” Ryet said on an exhale.

Then they were gone.

\--

“Teeth and tongue, this place is more run-down than the one we just left,” Ryet said when they reappeared, sucking in a breath when he saw the broken lights and stained floors. Adeas bumped his head on the low ceiling. How ironic, he thought. 

They emerged from the terminal (“You can’t even call this a hut,” Ryet remarked) and stepped into the grey fog that had unrolled itself over the land. Adeas cast about, certain that their destination was within arm’s reach, while Ryet surveyed the land with a bit more suspicion.

Finally, he saw it, a dim outline of a symbol he was taught to recognise, heralding their arrival.

“It’s just over there,” he said, eagerly pointing the way. 

They walked across a large stretch of gravel that crunched underfoot and stared up at a behemoth archway whose light permeating the fog. “ACLAND,” Ryet read out, eyes narrowed in a squint. “What…”

They stepped through, ignoring the beep of the in-built scanner as they passed under the archway. Adeas could see the shapes of booths and buildings stretching out beyond the archway, a faint light glimmering from each of them, growing clearer as they drew nearer.

Ahh…, Adeas thought.

Ryet was outright frowning in disapproval at this dismal scene. “So where is this, Master Adeas?” 

Adeas gave a complicated smile and said all at once, “It’s my theme park!”


	9. Rest

The park they had entered was flat, purposefully so. It took immense work to smooth over the Post-Rapture world, work that was often reserved for cities and other livable spaces. But this area had been painstakingly developed to hold booths and buildings alike which were completely devoid of people. 

As they crossed the promenade, signs flickered to life. ‘Adedas’, one read. ‘McAdeas’ said another. Adeas frowned at one that read, simply, ‘Addle’. 

“You didn't tell me you had a theme park,” Ryet said, glancing perplexedly at the signs that hung overhead each empty shop.

“It was built half a century ago, probably before you were born.”

Ryet shook his head in disbelief. “How did you find out about it if you never visited?”

“They left me a message on the autocomm,” Adeas said. “I don’t usually need to send a message so I didn’t know about it for a long time.” He coughed. “Several years. After that I was just too embarrassed. Also I was a little more single-minded back then,” he admitted. Where had that single-mindedness gone? His thoughts had been split down the middle, one seemed to have strayed left and hit a dead-end (literally), disappearing along with the one year he apparently lived before it died. He was travelling along the right branch now, not knowing where he was going. It was a little like someone had cut the string of his balloon and he was following its journey into the sky with his eyes alone.

He climbed aboard a merry go round as a distraction. Ryet switched it on and then climbed onto a skewered fossilised horse alongside him. Adeas worried at the paint on his fossilised bear. “I think the park fell through a little. It doesn’t look like it’s been in operation for a while. Last I heard, it was run by a cult.”

Ryet kept struggling to remain upright on the horse, large as it was, as the ride came to life. “You mean a Faction.”

“Sure, whatever.”

“Wait, what do you mean before I was born, how do you know how old I am?”

Adeas felt the force of the ride pulling him outwards, like it was trying to buck him off. If the world travelled that fast… “You look like you’ve been alive for less than forty years, so-“

“I can’t believe you’d think that-”

“Hey, blame your question, maybe it halves your lifespan.”

They wandered into ‘Adeas King’ and materialised some meat and bread and roots for themselves from the dispenser. Ryet grumbled about it not being free and Adeas pointed out that they had credits to burn anyway. Then they squeezed into a booth to eat. “Why did you want to come here?” Ryet asked.

“I’m hungry. Aren’t you? Here, have more roots,” Adeas said, grabbing a handful of strips of crispy, salted roots to pass to Ryet.

Ryet took the roots and accidentally snapped one of them in half. “No, I mean why did you want to come to the theme park?”

“I told you, I always wanted to see this place,” Adeas said. He had ordered a small drink yet he was able to grip it with both his hands. It really was a park catered to him, he should have visited sooner. The drink was some unidentifiable ‘Adeas Cola’ which made Adeas question its contents but he didn’t want to draw unnecessary attention to himself so he stopped. “Also, I think I just needed a break. I  _ did _ just die.”

“You just came back to life,” Ryet pointed out. “And it’s been a few weeks.”

“It occurred to me that I needed a break,” Adeas continued with an air of magnanimity. “A walk’s got to have a beginning, middle and end.”

“If you think about it, we’re always walking. Like one long endless journey. We always need to get to one place or another.” Ryet hid his smile at Adeas’ grimace. “I know it sounds pointless and tiring but the earth is round, isn’t it? It’s like using the toilet, brushing your teeth or doing the dishes, it just keeps going.”

Adeas groaned. “Am I just travelling in an infinity symbol after all?” 

“I think I saw a home video about that.”

Adeas scowled out of the window, the glass grimy with dirt made the world outside look greyer than it was, and in doing so created the illusion that it was not grey outside at all and it was all the window’s fault. Without the window in the way, the sky could be a different colour after all, like white or black or blue. Adeas felt tired, bone tired, like he should have reached some sort of conclusion by now, but he knew as long as he lived he could not rest. His body hummed with a million different questions and he wished he meant it as a figure of speech.

“You know you really have me at a disadvantage,” Adeas said, still looking out of the window at the dark buildings. “You’ve been taking care of me, or following me? I don’t really know what you get out of it, at least this way we can both catch a break.” 

Ryet was studying the cold soggy food on his tray. He sighed and a few pieces of root split in two. “So you wanted to get your head straight. About everything. About me. Decided anything?"

Adeas had not. 

Ryet idly cracked his knuckles, they crunched like ice. "Well if you wanted to stop for a while, take a break, I suppose this is as good a place as any. It's like a museum, a tribute to you. That's why they made it huh? I don't really get the appeal myself but maybe it's because there's no one here." He stole a glance at Adeas. "What’s wrong?" 

"I think they waited for me. All these people, they’re not here anymore but they definitely waited."

“So what? They made it all out of their own selfishness. Didn’t they want you to join them?”

“Yeah but it's not nice to keep people waiting." 

"They didn't even know what you looked like or what you wanted.”

“I think they knew my size,” Adeas said, feeling a little uneasy.

“You doubt your own legacy?”

“No, no, but see, they knew my measurements,” Adeas said. “How tall I am, how wide, my shoe size...I don’t think I’ve grown, not even now. But the size of the door, the booths, the cups…” he trailed off. Then leaned forward, splaying his hands on the sticky and now oddly clean table, voice urgent, “Isn’t that weird? I thought I stopped growing at some point but I don’t remember anyone taking my measurements.”

“One of those gantries maybe, you know, ‘beep’ and you’re through.” Ryet didn’t seem bothered but he was studying Adeas carefully. “Don’t get paranoid, Master Adeas. If you’re agitated…" He didn’t finish, instead he looked out of the window. 

“What is it?”

“I’m not sure,” Ryet said, standing. He gripped his bag, knuckles white and Adeas was alarmed when he took out his stick. “But we should leave.”

“There’s no one here,” Adeas said. “The park is abandoned. No one’s been here for a long time.”

The tables were indeed thick with dust and when Adeas lifted his hands they came off, but the dust, wet as it was, did not fall off his hands when he swiped them together. “Out the back,” Ryet said urgently. “Quickly.” Around the back of the ‘Adeas King’ was a long alley that stretched across all the shops where water dripped from pipes into pools worn into the ground. It soaked into Adeas’ trousers but he barely noticed it because Ryet had gripped him by the wrist to lead him out. They stopped at the mouth of the alley and Ryet motioned for him to stop, pressing himself against the wall. 

Adeas saw that the big archway they had passed under was now electrified. “Master Adeas, this theme park was not a tribute, this was a trap.”

“Can you get us out?”

Ryet looked uncertain, then he grew resolute. “I can get you out.” He put Adeas’ hand on the stick. “Grip it tight.”

Adeas let go. “What about you?” 

“There’s no time.” His face changed. “Someone’s coming.”

“Someone is here.” A man was standing behind them, grinning, but politely. He had a head of white hair despite his youthful face and when he bowed, Adeas saw the compound bow on his back. “Julis Percival at your service.” He straightened and then threw his arms out wide. “Welcome, Adeas Catchall to ACLAND!”


	10. Blue Cycle

When Adeas opened his eyes, he was lying in a large bed. This was shocking not least because he didn’t remember going to sleep in it. His clothes had been changed from the ripped and stained suit into a loose shirt and trousers, bone white against his red veiny skin. 

The window drew his gaze. It reached from floor to ceiling and a large blue sky shone in. He swung his legs out of bed and went to stand at the window, studying the blinding blueness. The more he stared, the paler the sky grew, until he was almost squinting to look at it. 

Belatedly, he realised his error. The wispy clouds that drifted by looked too picturesque to be real and indeed, when he placed his hand on it, his suspicions were confirmed. It was glass alright, but whatever substance was behind it, liquid or electric or otherwise, when Adeas applied pressure to it, shifting the substance, the image warped and dark patches bloomed where his hand touched.

“Careful with our LCD projector,” came a smooth voice behind him. “It’s one of the last few in existence.”

A man with white curling hair and a loping gait had entered, folding himself onto one of the soft seats placed in front of the fake window. Adeas stared at him.

The man tilted his chin up to expose his cordiality for Adeas’ approval. “Did you have a good rest, Adeas Catchall?” 

The cadence of his voice was irritating yet familiar and Adeas slowly recalled the events that had taken place prior to his awakening in the strange room.

\--

The white of Julis Percival’s head bobbed like a cloud against the ruinous grey of ACland, startling yet serene. He shook both Adeas’ and Ryet’s hands enthusiastically. His skin was as dry as a serpent’s. “We’re so glad you finally decided to visit. We heard you met Pira and, to be honest, we felt a bit left out."

Ryet took a step back. “You’re not part of her Faction are you?"

Julis' grin widened in pleasant surprise. “No, but in a way, all Factions are part of us. Since the Rapture, we have all been waiting as one for someone to come for us, have we not? For years we have been plagued by questions that threaten to destroy us.” At this he shrugged, “And all anyone wants is an answer.” 

His proclamations spiralled into the empty sky and Adeas remembered the satellite pictures of Earth as it was now. The planet, broken apart and fragmented into chunks, orbited its own core, like a puzzle that would never again be reassembled. Scientists determined that Earth now floated in a void removed from space. Gone was the sun, the stars, the planets, the Milky Way. Nothing remained except other pieces of shattered rock. No bodies, celestial or otherwise, had been spotted in decades. Those left behind were simply waiting to go.

One of the specks on a giant fragment of Earth held a stick in his hand that was sometimes long and sometimes short. He rolled his eyes. “Oh please,” Ryet said. “You can’t seriously still believe that?” 

“There’s nothing wrong with some healthy optimism, Mr Clear. People may have stayed the same but the planet is changing all the time, other factors are shifting...” Julis turned to Adeas. “Adeas Catchall, we have been watching you. You are that someone who can provide us with an answer. You have fulfilled your personal quest and risen again. So as promised, it's time, time to take us all back. Time to deliver us all!”

“I don’t offer that sort of service,” Adeas said, putting out his hands as if to placate the raving madman. Ryet extended the stick. “I think all optimism is in fact unhealthy,” Ryet said and grabbed Adeas’ hand, placing it around the stick. 

“You won’t know until you try,” Julis said. Then he unhooked his compound bow and nocked it, or rather he drew the string back despite there being no bow notched in the string. Yet Julis made a great show of it, closing one eye in concentration, his muscles straining with the effort. 

“Remember to let go, Master Adeas!” 

But Adeas let go first and watched as Ryet soared away, a shout of rage ripping from his throat, unable to fight the momentum. The stick propelled him high above the flashing lights of the fairground, the dinghy buildings, the archway at the entrance still sparking dangerously. He became a speck, still screaming desperately at Adeas left trapped in the alley.

There was a twang as Julis leased the bow. Adeas was knocked backwards by a force that burrowed into his chest, the pressure lancing through him like a knife stabbing right through him. It spread out, spidering through his veins, an indescribable feeling overtook him until he felt like his very mind had been separated from him.

“It’s not enough to release the questions,” Julis’ voice faded into black. “But this makes transit easier…”

\--

Adeas’ hand rose and gripped his chest, as if trying to locate the phantom arrow that struck him. “What did you hit me with?”

Julis looked apologetic. “Just some of my Will, a kind of intention. It’s just psychosomatic, not as invasive as you think. It’s main purpose was to discombobulate.” 

“I would have come quietly.”

Julis nodded. “You were transported in style. My only regret is that you weren’t able to enjoy it.” He waited for Adeas to make some kind of acknowledgement of his good intentions. Then, as if realising his folly, quickly moved on to change the subject. “ What do you think of the room?”

“Very impressive simulation,” Adeas nodded at the window with its blue sky.

“A reminder of better days.”

“So, a period piece,” Adeas joked.

“Or the future to come,” Julis said. His eyes looked distressingly blue, edged with the kind of madness one could recognise as religious fervour. Adeas had encountered people like that before, filled with conviction that their beliefs were the gospel truth, although Julis seemed more dangerous than their simple self-denial. 

What was it about the man? His demeanor seemed normal but his body gave off a sense of tension that set Adeas on edge. Julis clapped his hands suddenly, startling Adeas. “You must be hungry. We prepared some hot drinks and food for you.” Saying this, he dragged over a food cart heaped with meats, grains, vegetables and cups of steaming liquid.

Adeas didn’t look at it. “Where’s Ryet?”

What good cheer on Julis’ face died, but he didn’t look worried. “Mr Clear disappeared and we had no need to look for him.” With a start, Adeas realised what it was that unsettled him about Julis. It was how calm he was. It was almost unnatural given the circumstances. When he first introduced himself, he looked like he might wet himself in excitement. Yet now he seemed assured, as if Adeas’ mere presence was a guarantee his plans were now progressing smoothly and he had all the time in the world. 

He seemed to notice Adeas’ disconcertment. “We’re sure he’s still alive,” Julis said dismissively. 

“You don’t think he’ll come for me?”

“Of course he’s welcome to try. We understand you might be somewhat anxious to locate him. Many were surprised you came willingly,” and at this he seemed to level a thoughtful gaze at Adeas as if expecting him to do something drastic. Run straight through the window, maybe. Not that he hadn’t thought about escaping, but the room they had trapped him in had only one exit that Julis currently stood in the way of.

“I have a habit of disregarding risks,” Adeas gestured casually to himself. “Case in point, I’m still here, despite it all. Although I have no idea why you brought me here in the first place.” That was a half-truth. He had some idea. 

Julis considered him, but not for very long. He shrugged. “Everyone has questions. Since the Rapture that was all anyone had. As you know, if we were to begin to answer our own question,” he trailed off. 

“Oh well yeah, I know that people can’t actually address any of their own questions but what does that have to do with me—”

Julis cut him off. “Perhaps it would be easier to show you.” He drew out a small remote control the size of his palm button and pressed a button. Instantly the large window pane that stretched from one end of the room to the other flickered from the image of the blue sky to a man standing in a room. 

A prisoner, Adeas identified immediately. He looked frightened, desperate. His clothes were dishevelled, torn in places that were the result of a scuffle rather than simple wear and tear. Bruises marked his face and wrists and he bore a cut on his lip which he tongued at while his jaw worked.

“No sound?”

“Now Master Adeas, we heard you were brave but that's simply suicidal!”

Julis pressed another button and the man’s head jerked up, his expression shifting from surprise to recognition as if he had heard someone call his name. Then, it crumpled in on itself in horror. His hands flew up to his ears, heels jammed painfully to them as he doubled over. His mouth opened wide in a silent scream.

Whatever the man was listening to seemed to cause him great distress and was impossible to block out because Adeas saw his throat vibrate with the force, saw the slow creeping of red up his neck and face. 

The scene was utterly incongruous to the classical music being piped into the room. Mood music, Julis explained, eyes fixed to the screen in rapt attention.

Adeas saw the moment the man knew his life was over. When his face changed into one of horror and realisation. His mouth went slack and then started moving minutely like he was mumbling to himself.

“There it is. See, just there. He's entering the Cycle,” Julis said. “He’s giving in.”


End file.
